Burnout Crash looks absolutely godawful

This is basically one of the worst things we've ever seen. And we sat all the way through Bitch Slap, so we know what we're talking about.

There are few games we’ve enjoyed as much as Burnout. That’s a pretty bold statement, and one we’re going to explain – it’s not that the Burnout series are the best games in the world. It’s not that we’ve played them the most, or that we even have a particular fondness for them.

Ugh

No, Burnout is a game you play with your friends at about eleven pm. All of you are a bit pissed (and one, or more, of you is kinda high too) and you decide to play a game rather than go through the awkward process of actually talking to each other – and out comes Burnout. Out comes Crash for Cash.

For those of you not in the know, Crash for Cash is the best idea that humanity has had since sliced fucking bread. It’s simple – you pelt racecars down short tracks into an intersection, at which point you do your best to deliberately cause as much damage as possible by crashing into stuff. You can steer your car in midair, if you want, because why not?

It’s not especially complex, but it is ridiculously enjoyable when played with your friends in a way that Call of Duty will literally never be able to better – especially when you slam your muscle car into the side of a row of busses and watch the insurance money rack up. We’ve been waiting for years for Criterion to release a game that’s just about crash for cash, especially since they took it out of Paradise, their last release in the series. They took it out, by the way. Why would they do that?

Don't steer. In fact never use a Kinect unit ever as it makes you look like a complete tool

Criterion would do that because they HATE YOU. What’s that? Criterion can’t hate you, they’ve never met you? Well, they do. They’ve got it in for you. If you need further proof of Criterion literally hating you and wanting to ruin everything you love then look no further than their latest effort, Burnout Crash, coming out on PSN and XBLA this Autumn.

Criterion, we would literally give you all of our money if you released a game that was proper Burnout (anything up to Revenge) but just about crashing into stuff. We would put all our money in a giant sack marked SWAG and you could just have it as long as we got a copy of the game. That’s all we want. It’s not hard. The tech’s been there for the last ten years.

And yet, and yet, and yet. Here we are. You’ve released a game called Burnout Crash that’s a GTA1-style top-down racer. It is cartoony. It is – and our back teeth shudder at the word – cutesy. It offers “full” Kinect support, which amounts to moving your hands to steer your car and jumping up and down to make it explode over and over.

Like the GAMBLE you're taking with the Burnout franchise? ZING

Jumping up and down. To make it explode. Over and over.

They have taken a game we LOVED about mass vehicular damage and doubtlessly several hundred deaths per round and sold it to CHILDREN so they can BOUNCE UP AND DOWN. You watch yourselves. Before you know it, Criterion will have broken into your house and nailed your cat to the wall. They’re evil, evil people. These are dark times.

Burnout Crash will be released on an unsuspecting population this autumn on both PSN and XBLA, forming the latest stage of Criterion’s unceasing campaign to destroy everything you care about